It is easy to portray the anti-immigration sentiment as coming entirely from the political Right. But the environmentalist Left is also a big part of the anti-immigration effort. Groups such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a leading anti-immigration group, played a key role in two failed attempts to take over the Sierra Club in 1998 and again in 2004. FAIR and its offshoot, Numbers USA, advocate not only an end to illegal immigration and deportation of all illegals, but also reduced levels of legal immigration....

Hawaii Representatives Neil Abercrombie, D-HI, and Ed Case, D-HI, (first and second Congressional districts, respectively) both voted on December 16 to keep the felony provision in the bill. Case then voted to approve HB 4437 as a whole while Abercrombie voted against it. Case has close ties to the environmentalist Hawaii Nature Conservancy: his sister Suzanne Case is their Executive Director.

SHOW YOUR OUTRAGE & PROTEST TOMORROW!

• WHAT – AKAKA BILL SNEAK ATTACK PUBLIC PROTEST
• WHEN – MONDAY, DECEMBER 14th @ 7 AM to 9 AM
• WHERE – CORNERS OF BERETANIA STREET & PUNCHBOWL, Downtown Honolulu. 
• WHY – DEMAND A FAIR & OPEN PROCESS

The people of Hawai'i are tired of tax and spend policies that leave future generations with a huge financial burden.  Republican Charles Djou is the only candidate in this race who can bring the kind of fiscal accountability to Washington that the people of Hawai'i and the nation deserve.

Has Mufi’s strong fundraising lead and widespread appeal threatened Abercrombie’s run for governor, so much that he has to bail from one office to run fulltime for another?  Is he so afraid of his vote record and the tough votes that are pending in Congress?  Perhaps he’s embarrassed by the $3.5 million earmark he proposed for a company whose president co-chairs his gubernatorial campaign. 

...VBM concerns have been heightened by a number of disputed elections and documented cases of absentee ballot fraud....

On Wednesday December 16 Abercrombie's House Natural Resources subcommittee will vote on HR 2314, the "Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act of 2009" better known as the Akaka Bill.  The committee will meet at 10AM EST (5AM HST) in room 1324 Longworth.

The following day at 2:15PM EST (9:15AM HST) the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, meeting in Dirksen room 628, is scheduled to vote on the companion bill--S1011.  The vote had been originally scheduled for December 9 but has been rescheduled to the 17th. 

A mandate requiring all individuals to purchase health insurance would be an unprecedented form of federal action. The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States. An individual mandate would have two features that, in combination, would make it unique. First, it would impose a duty on individuals as members of society. Second, it would require people to purchase a specific service that would be heavily regulated by the federal government.

Next week Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is expected to attach a provision to the Department of Defense appropriations bill that would increase our national debt limit by $1.925 trillion. This debt limit raise would authorize the U.S. Treasury to borrow as much as $14 trillion, which is 30% higher than the $10.8 trillion limit that was in place when President Barack Obama took office.

Headley originally was arrested in October on charges he planned attacks on high profile targets in Denmark and India that included the Danish newspaper facilities of Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper and its employees. The new charges filed in the Northern District of Illinois accuse Headley, an American citizen born in Pakistan, of helping facilitate last year's deadly Mumbai attacks that killed approximately 170 people, including six Americans, and injured hundreds.

A Pakistani newspaper reports the arrest of five foreign nationals after a raid in a town called Sargodha. The raid took place at the home of a member of the Jaish-e-Muhammad, a Pakistani movement designated as a terrorist group by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2001.  According to the report, "The DPO told that these people had been living in Sargodha since Nov 30 and it was quite a possibility that they were engaged in acts of terrorism."

HEALTH DEAL UNRAVELING:  This fight isn't over yet, no matter how many times the media tries to declare the death of the public option. It'd only take one or two senators to unravel this deal, and progressive senators Russ Feingold and Bernie Sanders both indicated last night that their support can't be taken for granted.   (...so sad...)

If you are one of the few Americans who still subscribes, your morning newspaper probably has a headline like this: Democrats Reach Deal on Health Plan. Don’t believe it.  Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is still light years away from producing the 60 votes necessary to pass Obamacare out of the Senate. And the few details that have leaked out about this new “broad agreement” only reveal just how desperate Reid is to get any bill on to President Obama’s desk by the New Year.

“Former OPM Director Linda Springer told FederalNewsRadio it will literally take an act of Congress to pull that off. ‘I flat out think that OPM doesn't have the capacity to do this type of role,’ said Springer. ‘Furthermore, I don't believe that OPM has the statutory authority to do it as well. But on both those counts, I don't think it would be a good call….”’

Our priorities include:

• stimulating the economy and creating jobs,
• reforming our public education system,
• developing clean energy sources while achieving energy security,
• modernizing our transportation infrastructure,
• protecting the environment, and
• creating brighter futures for our students through scholastic robotics and other STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education programs.

Sen. John Barrasso (R., Wyo.) said expanding Medicare "is putting more people in a boat that's already sinking."  The American Medical Association said it opposes expanding Medicare because doctors face steep pay cuts under the program and many Medicare patients are struggling to find a doctor. Hospitals also said expanding Medicare and Medicaid is a bad idea.

Yesterday, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) declared carbon dioxide to be a dangerous pollutant under the Clean Air Act, granting itself authority for an enormous, unprecedented regulatory undertaking that would greatly expand the EPA’s power. Because 85 percent of the U.S. economy operates on fossil fuel, the EPA would essentially have the ability to regulate every aspect of life in America – and it would be able to enact draconian climate-change policies without any accountability to American voters.

Plutocrats from around the world have marshaled over 1,200 limos and 140 private planes to travel to and around Copenhagen over the next two weeks. When they are not participating in the world’s oldest profession, conferees will be negotiating over a successor treaty to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol which obligated most developed nations to reduce their greenhouse emissions by 5 percent below 1990 baseline levels by 2012.

The HSTA has conspired with the DoE and BoE to make the furloughs as damaging as possible in order to put Hawaii schools so far out of the competition that the Hawaii Legislature will see no point in trying to enact the education reforms which could help win “Race to the Top” funding.

Four Hawai’i schools who competed at the Pan Pacific Championship qualified to advance to the VEX Robotics World Championship that will take place at the Dallas Convention Center and Arena April 22 - 24, 2010, including: Honokaa High School, Waiakea High School, McKinley High School, Pearl Highlands Intermediate.  At the World Championship, these winning teams will have the opportunity to challenge their top-ranked peers from other countries around the world, including teams from the Asian Robotics League, South America and Europe.

Undeterred by the complete failure of their past job creation efforts, leading leftist luminaries are again calling on the liberal majorities in Congress and President Obama to approve billions more in government spending for a third stimulus. Yesterday, President Obama hosted a “jobs summit” where academics, union leaders, and select big business leaders made their pitch for government largess. Among the ideas reported: Teamsters leader James Hoffa called for higher barriers to trade, President Obama insisted that all future aid to states go to preserving government jobs and not tax cuts, and others pushed to bring the “success” of Cash for Clunkers to a new Cash for Caulkers program.

The Senate began debate on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (H.R.3590) this week. Senators on both sides of the aisle offered amendments to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s huge, 2074 page health care bill. The first votes to take place concerned preventative services for women.

With discussions stalled until mid-December, public unions bosses are showing their priorities do not lie with Hawai'i’s children.  They simply ignore the financial reality the rest of Hawai'i has already begun to face.  Instead of reallocating from the DOE/BOE bureaucracy, these uncaring public union leaders are mercilessly pulling more money from teachers’ pockets and valuable class time from students.

Almost three weeks since the plan was announced, we are still in lengthy and unproductive discussions with the State Teachers union.  It is disappointing that the next discussions aren’t scheduled again until December 15th and 16th. This delay will seriously impact the possibility of teachers voting on the contract changes and the convening of a special session to enact the necessary legislation to use the State’s Rainy Day Fund.  This will result in further loss of classroom time in the month of January.

... For some reason, they fail to mention the erupting volcano next door ....

Dan DiMicco, CEO of steelmaker Nucor Corp, who told the Wall Street Journal: “Companies large and small are saying, ‘I am not going to do anything until these things — health care, climate legislation — go away or are resolved.’” Or Porta-King CEO Steve Schulte who tells USA Today his company is not investing because “proposals in Congress to tackle climate change and overhaul health care would raise costs.”

Dr. Frank Sayre and Laura Mallery-Sayre experienced first-hand the heroism of the Hawai‘i Fire Department when they lost their son in a hiking accident in Polulu Valley.  The Hawai‘i Fire Department did not have rappelling ropes long enough to reach the bottom of the valley, so firefighters flew a helicopter into the narrow terrain at great personal risk.

Since then, Frank and Laura, motivated by the bravery and heroism of the firefighters, began the Daniel Sayre Foundation to raise money to buy equipment for the Hawai‘i Fire Department. Their efforts have been met with resounding success in the community, as they have raised more than $400,000 to provide essential life-saving equipment and training for our firefighters.

During the month of November, while President Barack Obama was dithering on whether or not to embrace General Stanley McChrystal’s strategy for winning in Afghanistan, something unexpected happened in American public opinion on the war. According to Gallup, the American public switched from 42% for and 44% against sending more troops to Afghanistan, to 47% for and only 39% against a troop build up. It is unclear why the American people came to support an increase in troops last month, but it is safe to rule out strong leadership from the White House as the cause. Hopefully the President’s incoherent address to a muted West Point audience will not reverse America’s growing support for victory.

Cadets await speech at West Point

"After vacillating for months, I am happy the President has finally made up his mind to confront the Taliban and defeat Islamic radicals.  This is the right decision and deserves our nation's full support," stated Djou.  "The war in Afghanistan is a fight we must win."

The ‘Small Business Survival Index' helps business owners and investors understand the public policy burdens placed on entrepreneurship and small business, with the states ranked accordingly.

As multiple sources reported this October, General McChrystal presented President Obama with three troop level scenarios each graded by risk: 1) an additional 20,000 troops that would run a “high risk of failure“; 2) an additional 80,000 troops that would be a “low risk option” that has “best chance to contain the Taliban-led insurgency and stabilize Afghanistan“; or 3) an additional 40,000 to 45,000 troop “medium risk option.”

Chief United States District Judge Susan Oki Mollway today (Monday, Nov 30)  sentenced ETHAN MOTTA, also known as "Malu," age 40, to life imprisonment, without the possibility of parole, for his role in the shooting of three persons at the Pali Golf Course on January 7, 2004.

While Obama has been at great pains to make a show of avoiding taxes on the middle class to pay for his health care changes, his proposed increase in Medicaid eligibility will have a huge impact on the 39 states whose income cutoffs for the program are below those required in the new federal legislation.  States....will have to raise their eligibility for Medicaid under the Senate health care bill. And they will have to pay for part of the cost.

... a “cunning plan”, “inventing” temperature readings, and releasing fake “estimates” of temperature data for the year even before the year is over ....

Councilmember Djou introduced legislation to extend the ban on sleeping to City sidewalks, but a majority of council members blocked advancement of Djou’s measure. Djou is now seeking to apply an existing ordinance that bans structures on municipal sidewalks to the tents surrounding Kapiolani Park.

Djou fully supports giving free taxpayer financed mental health, drug counseling and shelter to those in need, but does not support converting City parks into private property.

A movement without an effective strategy for defeating its opponents cannot succeed. Therefore it is important to reacquaint ourselves with the art of political war.

In 2008, three female students at the St. HOPE Academy, a charter school in Sacramento, claimed inappropriate advances had been made by Mr. Johnson, who ran the school and was running for mayor. Mr. Johnson, a former NBA star, had been plagued by charges of sexual misconduct ever since his days as a player in the 1990s.

Mr. Walpin's investigators concluded that Kevin Hiestand, the attorney for Mr. Johnson, had approached at least one of the complaining students and asked her to remain quiet. About a week later, Mr. Johnson himself offered her a payment of $1,000 a month until she left school, which she refused to accept. Erik Jones, the St. HOPE teacher who eventually reported one of the victims' allegations to the police, resigned in protest, claiming the school also had sought to intimidate the student into changing her story.

As Pan Am Flight 830 descended toward Honolulu and passengers finished their breakfast, a blinding burst of light washed over them. And then, "BOOM!"

The 747 shuddered violently. Confusion erupted as the airliner nose-dived. Screams and thick smoke filled the cabin. Oxygen masks dropped.

In the rear of the plane, 16-year-old Toru Ozawa lay on his back in the aisle. His lower abdomen had been ripped open, his intestines seeping out. The explosion had also sheered off one of his legs. He called out for his mother and father; they watched in horror as he died.

Last week, the United States Preventive Services Task Force issued new guidelines recommending that women in their 40s no longer have annual mammograms and that women ages 50 to 74 have them only every other year, instead of annually. The recommendations were highly controversial, and by week’s end most health insurers and the federal Medicare program said they would ignore the panel’s recommendation and continue covering annual mammograms. This is as it should be: the federal government collects information and makes recommendations, and Americans are then free to consult their health care providers, ignoring the government if they so choose. The problem is that Obamacare would forever change this relationship.

When you read some of those files – including 1079 emails and 72 documents – you realise just why the boffins at Hadley CRU might have preferred to keep them confidential. As Andrew Bolt puts it, this scandal could well be “the greatest in modern science”. These alleged emails – supposedly exchanged by some of the most prominent scientists pushing AGW theory – suggest:

Conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organised resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more.

Earlier this month, the Obama administration moved to transfer alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed from the military justice system at Guantanamo Bay to the jurisdiction of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. Behind this move away from the military tribunal system, which delivered justice so effectively at Nuremburg, is an $8.5 million lobbying effort by the so-called “John Adams Project” launched in April, 2008 by the American Civil Liberties Union.

“The legislative auditor’s report of DBEDT offers erroneous findings and demonstrates a lack of understanding and appreciation of the critical role Hawai‘i’s overseas offices in Beijing and Taipei play in the economic future of our state.

“Hawai‘i is one of only two states in the United States that has been granted the opportunity to have an ongoing presence in China—the world’s fastest growing economy.  The Beijing office, under the leadership of Bo Wu and the Taiwan Office under Alex Lei have both been instrumental in developing solid working relationships with Chinese business, government, academic, and cultural leaders.

Our study found that the Hawai‘i Teacher Standards Board is in a state of confusion, unable to develop, administer, and deliver an effective teacher licensing program.  The board’s failure jeopardizes federal funding for the Department of Education (DOE), which is struggling to meet the requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). The board has not applied new standards to teachers seeking an initial license. Moreover, the executive director assumed the board’s authority to approve new or initial licenses, which clouds the validity of approximately 3,800 licenses issued since 2003. Further, the board has no rules and procedures for appeals.

With the national debt now topping $12 trillion, the White House estimates that the government’s tab for servicing the debt will exceed $700 billion a year in 2019, up from $202 billion this year, even if annual budget deficits shrink drastically. Other forecasters say the figure could be much higher.   In concrete terms, an additional $500 billion a year in interest expense would total more than the combined federal budgets this year for education, energy, homeland security and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

TAXILA, Pakistan -- Archaeologists warn that the Taliban are destroying Pakistan's ancient Gandhara heritage and rich Buddhist legacy as pilgrimage and foreign research dries up in the country's northwest.

"Militants are the enemies of culture," said Abdul Nasir Khan, curator of Taxila Museum, one of the premier archaeological collections in Pakistan.

"It is very clear that if the situation carries on like this, it will destroy our culture and will destroy our cultural heritage," he told AFP.

Hawaii Department of Education Hawaiian Studies instruction statewide has suffered a "decade of decline" as funding for the salaries of "kupuna program" instructors and teaching assistants are diverted to other uses.  The diversion of resources out of the classroom stems from "vague guidelines" and "weak oversight" according to a January, 2008 Audit report prepared by Hawaii State Auditor Marion M. Higa.

The Audit cites the Hawaii Board of Education and the top leadership of the Department of Education for "leaving the program without direction and in decline for more than a decade."

Confronted this spring with a $468M DoE two-year budget cut, the HSTA, DoE, and BoE went straight to the "Washington Monument Gambit"--cutting the most sensitive and prominent services.  Hawaiian style, this means the HSTA, DoE, and BoE conspired together to make furloughs as inconvenient as possible in order to pressure the Legislature for tax increases.  Also targeted, high school athletics.  Will they now settle for a one-time shot of $50 million?

The Honolulu City Council has won release of a previously unpublished Qmark Research poll cited as showing support for rail by Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is poised for another Saturday night cram down, forcing a Senate cloture vote mere days before his 2,074 page bill was given to Senators. Yet again, Congress will be forced to vote on a bill that none of them have actually read. More importantly, as we pour through the details, it becomes obvious that none of them even believe the plan will do what the bill says.

...a monthly abortion premium will be charged of all enrollees in the government-run health plan.  It’s right there beginning on line 11, page 122, section 1303, under “Actuarial Value of Optional Service Coverage.”  The premium will be paid into a U.S. Treasury account – and these federal funds will be used to pay for the abortion services.

Last Friday, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and five other terrorists would be tried in a civilian court in New York City rather than before a military tribunal. Pressing Holder on this decision at yesterday’s Senate Judiciary Committee Oversight hearing of the U.S. Department of Justice, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) asked: “Can you give me a case in United States history where a (sic) enemy combatant caught on a battlefield was tried in civilian court?”

Holder responded: “I don’t know. I’d have to look at that. I think that, you know, the determination I’ve made…”